ABSTRACT

The fourth revolution has not only removed a misconception about our uniqueness, it has also provided the conceptual means to revise people understanding in new terms. Although it is relevant to understanding the displacement caused by the fourth revolution, namely what they are not uniquely, it is not what I am referring to when talking about inforgs, that is, what the fourth revolution invites us to think people may be. First, the fourth revolution concerns, negatively, their newly lost uniqueness and, positively, our new way of understanding ourselves as inforgs. Thus posthumanism, once purged of its most fanciful and fictional claims, is something that they may see in the future, but it is not here yet, either technically or ethically. To understand it, consider the distinction between enhancing and augmenting technologies. In the light of the fourth revolution, people understand themselves as informational organisms among others.